In food safety, continuous improvement is a critical element. It is explicitly called out in regulations and food safety schemes. It is at least as important as meeting baseline compliance requirements, and arguably more important.  

Compliance requirements are the universal minimum, a starting point that is applicable to all organizations and businesses. Continuous improvement is the concerted effort that moves an organization up the risk management pyramid. As a result, compliance is the foundation or entry point on which we build customized and focused improvements towards risk-based management.   

While continuous improvement is an easy concept to talk or write about, it is a much harder concept to quantify, measure and practice. In food safety, the inability to calculate impact or return on investment (ROI) is commonly stated as a significant barrier to adoption and investment in new programs, processes, and technologies. If value cannot be shown, it is often challenging to decide to invest.  

Even worse, if systems are not designed to quantify the impact of the improvement from the new investment, it becomes unclear if the system in place is even functioning at all. Without defined metrics, the question becomes – Did the system fail? Or did we fail to measure it? 

One advantage of my role is the opportunity to meet with people to see how they approach the “measurement” and “continuous improvement” concept. The most consistent advice I give food safety professionals is to start with intention. Design the process, project or investment so that adoption, impact and timing are documented from the outset. Too often, small incremental changes are made with no record that they even occurred. 

As you consider ways to quantify or measure improvement, here are some examples to evaluate: 

For environmental monitoring programs (EMP), treat seek and destroy as a measurable strategy.  

• Document efforts to look for niches that your general EMP may not find. Conduct intensive swabathons on a schedule (quarterly, bi-annually, annually) and chart where observations are found.  

• Consider looking for more than Listeria species or Salmonella. Indicator groups or index genes may give you more signal sooner on where difficult to clean areas are, and, with some side-by-side testing, you can insight between the pathogen/indicator relationships.  

• Compare swabathon results over time and against routine EMP performance. 

• Use normalized metrics such as percent positive by zone, site, or season, and connect EMP results to sanitation and operational data (e.g., results per pound produced, per amount of sanitizer used, or per crew size). 

Equipment and infrastructure investments  

• For new wash line investments, cooler, etc., define metrics before installation. 

•  Examples can include: reduction metrics on consumer complaints, decreased shrink at retailers/customers,  1-2 day shelf life improvements. 

People and Culture.  

Food safety culture requires intentional cultivation. Otherwise, you get a culture, but it might be far from the one you want. 

• Incentivize the behaviors you want. Reward employees for finding positives in EMPs, for reporting deviations, for being proactive about finding opportunities for improvement. 

• Capturing how many training or tailgate meetings you do is not a meaningful metric. Those are activities, but not truly outcomes. It is important to connect them with demonstrable value if you want to claim they are powerful.  

• Avoid relying on “it’s the right thing to do” expectations. If you want to intentionally drive behavior and culture, demonstrate to employees how much it matters to you with actions. 

• Reward employees for their efforts – gift cards, close parking spots, gifts, company swag. A little appreciation goes an enormous way.  

• Don’t fixate on rewarding groups/practices that seem “perfect”. Instead, embrace those who identify issues and fix them. Normalize wanting to find “failures” routinely…this will lead to a seek and destroy culture as opposed to making it look like we are flawless (we never are). 

Continuous improvements are critically important. We must be diligent about finding ways to measure what matters to show value, return on investment, and to cultivate the cultures we need.  

These efforts should not be viewed as food-safety-only initiatives. Improvements in food safety almost always improve quality, consumer trust, employee engagement, and organizational mindset. When designed intentionally, continuous improvement becomes a catalyst for broader operational excellence.